


Paper Hearts

by sentimentalscribe



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Valentine's Day, solangelo, this is a day late but thats ok, this is just pure fluff I apologize, valentines day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 18:06:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9778247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sentimentalscribe/pseuds/sentimentalscribe
Summary: It turns out that, shocker, Will is a fan of big, cheesy, romantic Valentine's Day gestures. Fluff ensues.(Happy late Valentine's Day, everyone!)





	

The first heart Nico found was taped on his cabin window.

The morning had seemed normal enough. As he woke, got dressed, and slowly shook off his grogginess, Nico noticed something in the corner of his eye. Something red.

 _That's weird,_  he thought. He had gotten rid of most red furniture in the cabin months ago in an attempt to ward off the vampire vibe. But as he looked in that direction again, there was nothing. No red curtains or whatever he thought he saw.

_Oh._

Upon a closer look, Nico saw that a small red paper cutout of a heart was taped in the window. A simple one, with a fold in the middle as if it had been cut out that way. Like a schoolchild would have done.

Nico stared at it as he stood in the middle of the cabin. Why was it there? What was its purpose? Who would have-

Nico groaned to himself. This was Will, wasn’t it? It had to be. His boyfriend was definitely the type to leave a heart in Nico’s unsuspecting window.

Once Nico got over the realization, he felt a blush creep up his cheeks. As much as he liked to deny it, he was a sucker for romantic gestures. Will knew that. And as confused as Nico was about why Will chose this exact morning to leave a heart on the Hades cabin window, he wasn't complaining. The small smile on Nico’s face was cheesy, but he wasn't in any hurry to make it go away.

He felt an urge to take the heart down in case anyone saw, but forced himself to leave it there. Consider it an exercise in being comfortable with others’ opinions.

As he brushed his teeth and tied on his sneakers, Nico glanced back up periodically at the heart. A new flurry of butterflies quietly swirled in his stomach each time he saw the simple shape sitting up there, reminding him of his boyfriend's sweetness and adding to Nico’s disbelief that Will was actually dating him.

A charmed life, indeed.

What was even stranger was that when Nico pulled open the cabin door, it caused another heart to come fluttering down from the top of the doorframe, landing innocently on Nico’s feet.

It was bigger than the last one, more the size of a hand. Must have been wedged between the top of the door and the doorframe so it would fall upon the door opening.

 _Ha ha, Will_ , he thought. _This is cute, but one was enough._

But when Nico looked up from his feet and out at the courtyard, his stomach flipped. Leading from his door to somewhere in the distance was a trail of tiny red paper hearts, each one the size of a half dollar. It stretched out in front of him, inviting him to follow.

Okay, one heart Nico could keep up. But hundreds of them arranged on the ground right in the middle of the camp’s central courtyard? This was too much to just leave sitting there. Nico decided to follow the trail, but he made sure to make a big show of sighing and starting to gather the hearts up in his hands to hide them. Just in case someone was watching.

Nico picked up the trail’s hearts one by one as he reluctantly followed the path. He put each one in his pocket as he came to them, taking care not to crush them.

First the trail led him to a picnic table with a card on it. It was, wait for it, _another_ paper heart, except folded into a card with a marker pen message inside:

 

_I was going to write something sappy and poetic, but we both know I'm not good at that and you would just roll your eyes. So instead I say: You're great. Keep it up. Good job at being a person._

_-Will_

 

Nico rolled his eyes anyway. This was all really cute, and he would be lying if he said he weren't internally jumping up at down at his boyfriend’s thoughtfulness. But why was Will doing this? Did he just get a romantic urge that past night and decide to create an elaborate paper heart trail because reasons?

Part of Nico didn't even care because, hello, this was the best. But the question still nagged at him as he pocketed the card to hide the evidence and continued down the trail.

Once he followed it to the hill in front of the infirmary, Nico could guess where it was eventually going. He had to decide whether to ditch the trail and walk straight to the infirmary where he knew the trail would lead, or to continue following the winding path to its completion. He ended up caving to option two because that way he could gather the hearts up along the way and not leave them there to embarrass himself.

Next, the trail led to a tree. It had a low-hanging branch with an elaborately braided string bracelet tied around one of the twigs. A note read:

 

_I know you would be mad if I got you something expensive, so here's a more-than-friendship bracelet so you can always have me with you. (That was sappy. I'm sorry.)_

_-Will again. Obviously._

 

Nico smiled and took the bracelet off the branch, tying it to his own wrist. It was yellow and orange and felt out of place but completely right.

He reread the note and laughed. As odd as this all was, Nico wanted to hug Will. This was all so sweet Nico could barely process it.

Continuing to pick up the hearts along the way like a child following a candy trail, Nico kept going until he came to what he already knew would be the final destination: The infirmary. Where the two of them had first started really talking. He picked up the last few hearts that led to the door (his pockets were overflowing with hearts by now) and walked in.

As soon as he entered, a chorus of voices started cheering. Kayla, Austin, and most importantly, Will were standing in the middle of the main room, where most of the sick beds had been cleared away in favor of heart-shaped balloons. Scattered on the floor was confetti. Which was, you guessed it, heart shaped. At least Will’s theming was consistent.

“Hi, Nico!” Will exclaimed, throwing his arms up in a _ta-da!_ -type movement. “Did you like it?”

Confused as he was, Nico's face was now permanently lit up in a smile. He started to say that it was awful, just out of sarcastic reflex, but he couldn't even do that semi-convincingly.

Still, he was a little self-conscious about being the object of all this. He managed to say, “It was really cool, Will. That was really, really,” he met Will’s eyes and crossed his arms. “Amazing. You're amazing.”

Will beamed and looked back at Kayla and Austin, who had been silent through all this. “Oh, these guys just wanted to be properly credited before they go for helping me set this up.” Will motioned to them.

“I did the trail from the bench to the tree!” Austin rushed.

Kayla huffed. “Did not. You barely did anything.”

The two wandered off to a far corner, arguing over who had placed more hearts.

Will approached Nico and pointed at the bracelet. “You’re wearing it!”

Nico held up his wrist. “Of course I am. Thank you for it,” Nico said. He was still was unable to stop smiling. And blushing. The blushing was starting to be a problem. “And thank you for all this. It's amazing.” He let Will hold his hand and place their foreheads together, noses touching. In that moment, everything was right.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Nico,” Will murmured, lips inches from his own.

But then something clicked in Nico's brain. He pulled back sharply as realization struck him. “OHHhhhh, it's Valentine's Day! That's why you did all this!”

Will looked dumbfounded and disappointed to be cheated out of a kiss. “What do you mean? Of course this is for Valentine's Day. That's the point.”

“I thought you were just being randomly sweet. This makes more sense,” Nico said. Mystery solved.

“What? No, no, the whole point was for you to experience the whole thing with the cheesy Valentine's Day mindset!” Will turned and yelled across the room to Kayla and Austin, “He didn't even know it was Valentine's Day!”

Kayla yelled back, “What? But that's the point!”

“I know, that’s what I said!” Will turned back to Nico. “You have to do it all again, but this time with the proper Valentine's Day spirit.”

Nico was even redder now. He shrugged. “Can't. I picked up all the hearts. No more trail to follow.”

Will sighed. “You're killing me.”

Austin said, “That's it, we’re leaving. Our hard work isn't appreciated around here.” He and Kayla took the back exit, still arguing over who had done more to help.

“ _Tsk-tsk._ All of that over-the-top cheesiness just fell on deaf ears.” Will shook his head mournfully.

Nico ignored Will’s complaints and went up on slight tiptoe to kiss him. _That_ shut him up. When Nico pulled away, he said, “Thank you for all of this, Will. You're really cool.”

Will acted like he was thinking really hard about that. “Yeah, you're right. I guess I _am_ pretty cool.”

“Dork.”

“Idiot.”

They laughed and fell into a familiar slow-dance, weaving through the array of balloons. Will softly hummed some old song and joked every few minutes about _How did you not know it was Valentine’s Day Nico_ and _The whole camp has been talking about it for weeks._

Nico just laughed into Will’s shoulder and kept dancing. This boy would be the death of him, he swore. This was all just perfect.

And as far as Valentine’s Days went? Not bad. Not bad at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy late Valentine's Day! Thanks for reading and have a nice night. (remember to leave kudos or whatever if it made you smile!)
> 
>  
> 
> Also, for my novel, I'll be needing a social media following to show a publisher. So if you're enjoying this free writing, could you please follow my author twitter @sentimentalscr1 to support me in the road to publishing? It'll have updates on chapter progress, polls on what I'll write next, and info on when things will be up! I promise I don't tweet much. It won't bother you at all, but it will help me a lot. So give me a follow and help me out! Thanks so much!


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